Greek Theatre and Me

Subject: Greek Theatre and Me

First, I am not one for Greek Tragedy so this meditation is significantly shorter than all the rest. It is hard for me to understand most of the time.

I can say that one thing that struck me odd about this play was the fact that the choruses were written the way that they were. I am slightly ADD so it was hard for me to concentrate and read them. Although I think that the play overall was good. I think that we could use this as a political devise into today’s world. It is fairly simple; this story is about a God walking among the people. Half of the Unites States follows behind our ‘devoutly religious’ president and believes that God should be included in everything, and half of us don’t follow him whatsoever, we believe that religion is entirely different than politics. This story uses religion and politics to drive it Pentheus and Dionysus are prime examples of these thoughts. Though this is a weak description I feel that this is how this play is set up, religion versus politics or religious versus worldly.

There is also a comment that I would like to make about gender. Pentheus is so set in his ways throughout the play but yet there is this change when he dresses as a woman and crosses that gender boundary. This is a big thing I am not sure why I feel that way but I feel that it is. I think it is because of his structure that he follows and the fact that he breaks it when he takes on the feminine role.

I also have another observation. Since we know that there is a large piece of this play missing it is appropriate that that piece be after Agave realizes what she has done. This is one of those things that we could call meant to be. What does this do for the reader? What does this do for the story? We will never know for sure what we were supposed to hear or see, but I think that we are hearing and seeing what we were intended to see.

--Michael